Harry Truman famously said of D.C.: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." It turns out that Truman was wrong, at least if you go by the experts.

I'm not talking about Washington, but of dogs. And I'm not referring to the First Dog, Bo, who has received a ton of attention that should have gone to a shelter dog as the president promised. No, this is about dogs as dogs.

And love.

As traditional arrangements dissolve in the heat of the present age, or perhaps just under the hot studio lights of "Oprah," we are constantly told that there are many "kinds of love." Actually, this isn't a new insight. But we can leave that -- and the debate over this observation's meaning and utility -- for another day. What rankles is not where the line is being extended but where it is being withdrawn.

Until the day before yesterday, figuratively speaking, everyone understood that among the most honorable expressions of love -- a kind of love -- is the relationship between man and dog. Canines were lovers of learning for being able to distinguish friend from foe, according to Plato. Sigmund Freud observed that "dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate."

Charles Darwin, a true secular saint of the modern age if ever there was one, loved dogs unreservedly. And, in "The Descent of Man," he marveled at the ability of dogs to love back. He noted how even "in the agony of death, a dog has been known to caress his master."

But even Darwin was a sucker, apparently. Eric Zorn, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, recently mocked a local woman, Jess Craigie, who dove into near-freezing waters to save her dog from drowning. Zorn wrote, "Note to Jess Craigie: Your dog still doesn't love you." Continued...